Thanksgiving in Chile

Dear family,

We missed all of you at Thanksgiving, but sent you some pictures of our Thanksgiving day events.  Margaret the office elders some dinner, and then we went to a Thanksgiving dinner with some non-member friends.  They told us they could not see us here without having a regular Thanksgiving dinner.  It was lovely, and they could not have been kinder to us.

We seem to keep very busy.  We work in the office during the day and try to do missionary work in the evening.  One of the big problems in Chile is that people work long hours trying to survive.  In most cases, the husband and wife both work.  Their hours are long and often they are also working on Sunday as well.  When we went to the baptism on Saturday, Sandra Dias, the mother of Javier was there.  She is a lovely lady, but works all day Monday through Friday taking care of an elderly woman, and then works in the Farmers market on Sunday from 7 in the morning until 6:00 p.m. at night.  How do you teach someone the Gospel who never has time to read the Book of Mormon or go to Church.  They are sincere honest good people, but are burdened trying to support themselves.  Sometimes I feel the adversary is winning by keeping people so occupied with making a living that religion is not something they feel they need to worry about at the present time.  Many people are in the same situation.  both husband and wife work, they work many Sunday's and trying to survive and get ahead is more important than being a member of the true church.

We are still working with Hugo Rivera and Alfred Yanez.  Hugo we met at Turbus and Alfred we met at Liders.  They are both being taught by the missionaries, are attending church, but have not committed to baptism as yet.  They have both been invited, are moving forward, but a little slower than the missionaries would like.  We are having both of them over for lunch today after church.  We really enjoy them as friends as well.

The weather here is getting warmer each day.  I find wearing a long sleeve white shirt during the day is a little uncomfortable.  It is hard to believe that you are having snow, cold and ice in Utah.  I check the weather periodically in Utah, and it sounds like you are getting some snow and cold.  Hopefully, you will get plenty of snow in the mountains to alleviate the water problem that has gone on for several years.  I would like to have some water in the streams when I return.  Hopefully my Talbot cousins have not caught all of the fish.  I want to take Zach fishing.  He said he has not gone since we left.

we are receiving a lot of mail now in the mission.  All the missionary Christmas packages are arriving.  Mom and I were downtown on Friday so picked up the mail and we had 15 packages, some of them being big.  They gave us a big sack at the Post Office to deal with the packages, but even then, not all of them would fit in.  It was almost more than Mom and I could deal with.  Fortunately, however, we also received a package from Jon and Melanie, so picking up the mail was worth it.

It is time for us to go to church, so I better close.

Love,

Mom and Dad

Margaret prepared Thanksgiving dinner for the office missionaries.  This how it looked, even with a menu

 This is a picture of the office missionaries.  Talbots Hart, Childs, Gonzalez, Maki, Ortega, Morales and Hortua.

 Surrounding the table - Elders, Ortega, Hart, Gonzalez, Maki, Talbots, Childs, Morakes abd Hortua

 We were invited to a Thanksgiving dinner with non-member friends.  Left to right - Able from Spain, Rodolfo, Maria Antonette, Genevive, Mark Reddick, Margaret, and Martha,  In the front is Gustavio, son of Rodolfo and Martha.

A birthday party for Felipe, son of Monica and Claudio. We got some members of the ward to help him celebrate.  None here are members of the church

 These are all members of Monica's family, mother and sister and children who attended the party

A beautiful sunset over the Pacific Ocean from our balcony.

Maria Antonette with her grandchildren

Rodolfo with his two sisters.  Genevive on his right and Maria on his left

Marias son Rodrigo and his live in girlfriend and daughter,  The doll is the craze here now

 A picture of all of the women at the dinner.  Carolina, Rodrigo's wife (?) Genevive, Connie, Martha, Maria, and Margaret.

 Maria antonette hosted the Thanksgiving dinner.  She is not a member, but a very lovely person.  The family goes to the Evangelical church.

  Mark Reddick, Maria's husband holding their granddaughter and her doll.  These dolls are a craze  in Chile.  He said this doll cost $35.

 Genevive and her cat.

 Saturday we attended a baptism for Javier in the white shirt.  We met his mother Sandra at farmers market and talked to her.  She is not a member of the church, but a lovely person.  Her problem is she works Saturday and Sunday.

Sent from my iPad